Hey Junkies! Sorry for the lack of updates, things did not go according to plan. So here's the story to date -
I set out from Dominica, heading for Portugal, however, about 300nm NNE of St. Martin I realised that the gas bottle I bought in Dominica was leaking and almost empty. I had always planned to have two bottles full, and alcohol for my small burner in reserve. Due to time and money constraints I had neither. Lesson learned.
Obviously I had no choice but to bail-out, I decided to try for Gran Bahama, as that would leave me situated well for a second attempt. I did have some food stores that didn't need cooking, but not enough to make it to the Azores reliably. Fish was fairly plentiful as usual, using flying fish from the deck on my handline (when Sargasso weed didn't make fishing impractical). I mainly ate pickled Dorado, raw onions and mayonnaise. Not too bad.
I sailed on the windward side for most of the journey, to get better wind and avoid shipping, then entered the Caribbean south of Crooked Cay. As I passed between Crooked Cay and the Turks and Caicos Islands, I was approached by a sailboat from the south, they motored alongside me and I gave a brief account of my adventures to that point. We made a very welcome ship-to-ship transfer of 2kg of cold ham, and then parted ways.
The next morning I entered the banks by way of Man o'War channel, got becalmed for the second time (the first was in the Sargasso Sea), then continued north. The intention was to pass between Andros and Nassau, and anchor on the north side of Nassau. The other anchorages around Nassau did not look easy to approach for the first time without an engine.
During the night as I approached the Blossom Channel to exit the banks, the wind picked up, gradually reaching 30 knots. Not a huge problem, except that it was from the NE. The passage I intended to use faces North-South, and drops off from 6m to 600m in the space of a couple of miles. I envisaged huge breaking waves, even if I timed my passage to be favourable with the 2knt tidal current.
Only 8nm from the passage, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and turned SW and had a pleasant night sailing around the shoals and reefs south of Andros. Posiedon rewarded me with a barracuda around midnight. We battled in the cockpit, but I prevailed unharmed.
By the next afternoon I entered the lee of Andros, and sailing conditions improved. The wind unfortunately began to die as I neared the northern end of Andros, but the seabirds kept me company. Eventually the wind picked up, and I spent the night dodging now-defunct cruise ships that are anchored along the northern edge of the bank. By this point I had decided to visit an old friend on Gran Bahama instead of heading to Nassau, despite the fact it was too risky to enter the inlet solo and enginless. So I anchored off Freeport, and arranged for a tow.
2200nm in 22 days.
I'm now at my friend's salvage yard, doing some work here and slowly completing work on Chineel, so that I can begin chartering again. All work and no play, and no time to edit videos, sorry. I have started uploading some short, unedited videos of the work I'm doing here, search SV Chineel on YouTube if you want to see, or the same on Instagram for photos.
Once work is completed, and I have raised money chartering, the current plan is a solo circumnavigation, perhaps non-stop, followed by a more leisurely circumnavigation with my family.
I do have video from this adventure, and I will upload that and the rest of my solo Atlantic crossing footage to YouTube when I have time, but for now I thought I'd give you this update as it's been awhile since I posted.
Cheers,
Jake